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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2009275" data-attributes="member: 18387">This review is for The Forge of Fury by Richard Baker and published by Wizards of the Coast. This is the second module produced by Wizards and is designed for 3rd level characters. Where Wizards’ first adventure (The Sunless Citadel) lacked a certain substance, The Forge of Fury delivers, as a module should. In this story, the characters will face a wide range of diverse opponents that actually have a valid reason behind their existence in this dungeon. The party must defeat orcs, troglodytes, duergar, undead, animated objects, and ultimately, a black dragon. I disagree with the use of dragons in low level adventures, but yet we have seen two now (The Sunless Citadel being the first) where the party must deal with a dragon at some level. Dragons are supposed to represent the ultimate in monster opponents and should not be used frequently. To Mr. Baker’s credit, however, this dragon (while young) should be able to wipe the floor with the PC’s unless they plan their strategy carefully. It is an encounter that only the wisest and shrewdest should survive. I must make this point that if characters battle a dragon in every adventure, then the “mystique” of a dragon will be lost quickly. The general storyline is well put together and contains several viable adventure hooks to start the scenario moving. The design of the dungeon itself is good as are the traps contained within. It appears that it will be standard practice for Wizards to have an appendix containing all of the statistics for the encounters, NPCs, magic items, etc. rather than including them with the pertinent section of the module. I dislike the need to flip back and forth numerous times just for stats. Despite the quirks, overall this is a good module that has some of that “classic” dungeon crawl feel to it. I hope that the next few modules in this series continue to show the level of improvement seen when contrasting the first two that Wizards has published. Is the adventure worth the $9.95 price tag? In this case, yes - but it would be better served at $7.95.To see the graded evaluation of this product, go to The Critic's Corner at <a href="http://www.d20zines.com" target="_blank">www.d20zines.com.</a></blockquote>

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